


Burned

by MockerDelight



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Chromatic Character, Demon Deals, F/F, F/M, Gen, High School, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Jewish Character, LGBTQ Themes, Local Turtle loses Jesus, M/M, Michelle doesn't care about your gender binary, More News at Ten, Nonbinary Character, Raphe can't catch a Break, Raphe is Longsuffering, Succubi & Incubi, Trans Male Character, Urban Fantasy, WWMD (What Would Michelle Do?), Witch Covens Promoting Petty Theivery, getting an education
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-03-16 09:07:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13633173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MockerDelight/pseuds/MockerDelight
Summary: Raphe is a PI that occasionally dabbles in occult cases. His past comes to haunt him and an opportunity to reclaim his former power presents itself in a succubus with a job. The payout is enormous, but the job might be the last one he ever takes."A teacher?""Yep.""In a high school?""Yep.""I...just...why?""It's the only way, now get in uniform."





	1. McGuffin

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, this is the first work I'm posting on ao3 after stalking its pages for more that a year. This is just something I thought up that i need to get out of my system. I always liked urban fantasy but it feels like demons and angels kinda always turn out the same, so i decided to take a spin at it and see where it goes. This is unbetaed so if y'all notice anything that needs correcting feel free to comment.

“Thank you so much!” Her hand was rough with calluses as she clutched his, shoulders shaking.

Raph wanted to explain that her only problem had been the bad Feng Shui of her apartment on top of her own superstitious paranoia that had caused the bad spirits to become restless. He was cut off once again by her effusive gratefulness as her daughter gazed at him with eyes glazed over with admiration.

His fingers itched for a cigarette.

“Make sure to burn the incense and get rid of those statuettes, and the rest of the negative energy will disappear,” he said instead.

The woman nodded, and with a smile set the envelope of cash on his cluttered desk. They cleared out quickly, promising to recommend his office to their friends and family.

Raph sighed and slumped into his office chair, flipping through the bills in the envelope. Startled, he realized that the woman had slipped in an extra few hundred dollars. The space between his shoulder blades burned briefly, until he found a note tucked in between the bills. It smelled faintly like floral perfume, lavender, maybe.

‘ _Thank you for helping my mother with her troubles, please accept this gift as a gesture of my gratitude—Mei_ ’

The man smiled, touched by the kindness.

He was in the middle of sorting through the pile of detritus on his table and budgeting his money when the door opened. He immediately swept all of the paper off his desk, the envelopes stamped with the bold, red ‘Invoice’ were buried under the rest of the documents.

A stray document curled in the air before swaying slowly to the ground. His customer stood in the doorway, blinking at Raph and his overtly casual pose.

“Was that…?” the man’s lips twitched upward.

“I don’t want you to see what I have in those papers,” Raph explained, plainly.

The other man barked out a laugh, incredulous.

Raph finally got a good look at the man standing in his doorway, or more accurately, what was hiding behind his flesh. Raph pulled his elbow off the table, taking a cigarette from the pack in his desk drawer. He lit up and leaned back in his chair.

“Demon,” he greeted gesturing to the chair in front of his desk, “sit.”

Michelle grinned widely, at odds with his plain, clean-cut appearance. His gait was loose-limbed and sensual as he approached the chair. He didn’t sit so much as melt into the seat, dark eyes glittering with mischief.

“You look well,” he hummed.

Raph, owner of eye bags large enough to contain a county, gave the demon a flat look.

“What do you want?”

The demon fluttered his lashes, coyness curling his lips. “Can I not just want to catch up with an old friend?” he cooed, leaning forward flirtatiously.

Raphe felt as if he’d been blasted in the face by a freezing wind, the demonic power passing over him. It left the skin of his face tight, and awakened a well of irritation. The man huffed out a cloud of smoke,

“Cut the shit hell spawn,” he said, lip curled in distaste. His fingers trembled under the onslaught, but he still managed to take another drag of his cigarette.

As suddenly as it had hit, the power receded. All flirty undertone had left Michelle’s face. Instead, he frowned, inspecting the other man.

“You’re holding on by your fingertips, old friend,” he said, lowly.

Raphe sunk back, letting the familiar exhaustion pull him down towards the earth.

It had been so long since he had been anything but tired.

“Don’t talk about it, you never know when someone is listening.”

Michelle snorted and gave him a look that implied that Raphe was too paranoid for words. Then he reached onto the desk and stole a cigarette, lighting it with a snap of his fingers and a flare of demonic magic.

“On that subject, I have a proposition for you angelface.”

Raphe leaned forward, interested.

Michelle was a demon of considerable strength, there were very few problems that he couldn’t solve himself. The fact that he was coming to Raphe, whose power was diminished so much he could barely withstand charm magic, made this case interesting even before it started.

“I have a Disciple,” it was said quickly, in a pained tone of voice.

Raphe blinked.

Then smiled, sure Michelle was joking. But the demon avoided his gaze, rolling his cigarette between his fingers. Dread pulled on Raphe’s ribcage.

“ _What?_ ” he dropped his cigarette, cursing as he stomped on it before it could catch the office on fire.

“Why're you here, and not with them?” he coughed past the smoke stuck in his throat.

There were many different kinds of demons that made up the underworld. If someone wanted to boil it down to the basics, they could say that there are purebloods and mixed bloods. Mixed blood demons were the offspring of pureblooded demons with any other kind of creature that didn’t belong to the underworld, or a human that made the transformation into a demon. A pureblood demon was a creature that formed from the fires of hell itself, born fully formed to their purpose. On the surface there was little to no difference between the classes, but the fact was that purebloods were many times stronger than their mixed counterparts.

More importantly, purebloods had the ability to create demons from living humans. Raphe wasn’t sure what the criteria was, but when a demon marked a human, if they were ‘compatible’, the human would begin a transformation into a demon. It could be a disorienting experience for a human, especially since Disciples took on the traits and powers of their ‘parents’. Michelle was a pureblooded demon of one of the highest orders, his child was sure to be powerful.

“I can’t reach her!” Michelle’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and he tapped his foot anxiously.

“I was doing a deal in Upper East Side; some prick that wanted the girl he liked to be attracted to him. Which, easy, I mean turn up the dial on their sex drive and teenagers go at it like bunnies. But, the girl I marked, she became my Disciple.” The demon took a shaky breath.

“I realized it after I felt the contract dissolve, turns out she banged the literal soul out of the kid and sexed him into a coma.”

Raphe lit another cigarette. He offered one to the demon, who took it and sucked down another lungful of smoke immediately.

“Easy fix though, I try and go back and explain, ‘congratulations you’re a powerful sex demon’, but I can’t get into the fucking school. So, I figure out a _motherfucking_ incubus put up a barrier.”

Raphe felt tension string his back taut.

Incubi and Succubae hated each other. Both demon classes, in the pureblood form, came from the enmity of damned souls of rapists and rape victims respectively. Whenever they met blood was shed in the bucketful.

Raphe felt a headache forming.

“I can’t get to my Disciple with the barriers around the area, I don’t even know where or who the incubus is!” the demon yelled.

Michelle began pacing,

“That’s where you come in mister PI, I need you to dig up anything you can and destroy the barrier, and protect my Disciple.” Raphe sighed.

“Motherhood looks great on you, really, but are you _out of your goddamn mind?_ ” Raph ran his hands through his hair, pushing the crimped curls out of his eyes.

“First off, it sounds like this kid is in high school, so, how am I, a grown ass man, going to approach a teenage girl and convince her she’s a sex demon? It sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

Michelle opened his mouth to interrupt, only to be cut off.

“Secondly, I couldn’t fight off a poltergeist right now, let alone a pureblooded incubus.”

Michelle gave a frustrated snarl, teeth suddenly sharp as needles. “I’m no asking you to fight the incubus,” he snapped, “all I need is for you to look out for the girl and dismantle the barriers, and I’ll handle that son of a bitch.”

Raphe stared up at Michelle incredulously, before shaking his head.

“Even if I was interested in this job, there isn’t enough money in the world to convince me to take it, the risk isn't worth it.”

Michelle’s expression turned sly, and he went over to plant his palms on Raphe’s desk.

“Not enough money in the world?” he said.

Raphe nodded.

“How about for something other than money?”

Raphe’s gaze sharpened.

“What else could you offer me?”

Stupid question.

The succubus smirked, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a small dusty vial, sealed with wax. Raphe felt his mouth go dry, as his entire mind seemed to zero in on the liquid he could see in the glass. It looked almost like water, but when the light caught it, it rippled and shimmered unnaturally, a little too thick.

“Is that…?” Michelle nodded.

“One hundred percent pure Angel Tears, one sip of this and you’re riding a wave of power so strong you’ll be able to find your…missing item, in a heartbeat.”

Michelle rolled his eyes as he censored himself.

Raphe’s hand reached forward of its own accord, only for the demon to snatch the vial away before he could touch it.

“But you have to do this job for me angelface, help me out and this is your payment,” he said.

Raphe couldn’t say no, this was his chance to redeem himself and take back the power that was once his.

He held out a hand,

“You have yourself a deal.”


	2. Hunger

 

“It’ll be a little suspicious if I just start investigating the school, I don’t exactly look child friendly.”

Raphe shifted in his seat, picking at the fries on his plate. Michelle had complained that the office was too stuffy and she was craving burgers. Halfway out the door she had changed from a handsome Latino man, to an equally beautiful Latina.

Her clothes had shifted into a generic blouse patterned with small blooms of coriander and a pair of dark wash jeans. Her pink lipstick smeared slightly when she took a large bite of her Deluxe Baconator Burger.

“Yeah,” she said through a mouthful of food, “the piercings and the tats kinda make you look intimidating.”

Raphe licked self-consciously at his lip rings, clicking his tongue piercing against his teeth.

“So, how, exactly, do we plan to get me close enough to get in contact with your Disciple?”

Michelle hummed, crossing her arms.

“The piercings are an easy fix, just take them out, but the tats on your _face,_ those are a different story.”

Raphe glared, hand rising to cover the stigmata tattooed on his forehead.

“We can use makeup to conceal your stigmata and your clothes will cover the virtue markings on your back,” she sat back satisfied with her plan.

Raphe took a frustrated bite of his fries, fearing something like this.

“I can’t engage in deception, dumbass, concealing my markings counts,” he said.

Michelle sputtered slightly, “but you wear clothes all the time!”

“Um, is everything all right?” their server asked, setting a new glass of soda in front of Michelle.

“Everything is great.”

“No.”

Michelle scowled at Raph, before whipping around, all smiles.

“He’s a joker, and not a funny one,” she purred, ignoring Raphe’s muttered, “I’m not joking.”

The girl flushed slightly under Michelle’s attention, stuttered something about them calling her when they needed her and then hurried away.

“That’s so inconvenient, how do you even do your job as a PI?”

“Very carefully,” Raphe answered.

Michelle grunted, eyes taking on a vaguely red sheen as her gaze followed their waitress. The young woman flushed, and nearly dropped a stack of dirty dishes. She began walking towards the back with an embarrassed expression, thighs trembling subtly.

Raphe snapped his fingers in front of the demon’s face, earning him an affronted look.

“You _know_ I’m bound to the virtue of honesty, tell me you have a plan B.”

Michelle scowled at him, but her eyes had a faraway look, already scheming.

“Give me a few days to set up, and I’ll get back to you on that,” she sighed.

Michelle paid the tab after Raphe not so subtly pushed the check across the table the moment it was dropped off.

He caught a glimpse of a number scrawled across the top of the receipt before the succubus tucked it into her wallet.

Raphe pushed his hands deep into his hoodie pockets when they stepped into the chilly evening. He moved to return to his office, only to be stopped by a forbidding hand on his elbow.

“Promise you’ll meet me at this address in two days,” a slip of paper was tucked into his pocket.

Raphe breathed in the faint scent of wood smoke as Michelle pressed against him. She smiled and twined her hands behind his neck, tugging at his nape.

“Promise?”

Raphe felt the heat, the flush of arousal catching him off guard. The demon smirked gleefully, eyes slitting and turning red as she noticed.

She leaned up, lips brushing his.

“I’ll meet you at the address you gave me in two days,” he rasped, carefully pushing her hands away.

The succubus pouted.

“Fine, whatever.”

 Then she was walking away, pulling the receipt out of her wallet and dialing the number.

Raphe breathed, and squeezed his eyes shut, already regretting taking this job. Michelle loved to play, and the man was sure she would be having her fun with him for the entire job.

He wasn’t sure his heart could take it.


	3. Welcome to Hell (no not that one)

“A teacher?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“At the high school?”

 

“Yep.”

 

"I...just...why?"

 

 

"It's the only way, now get in uniform."

 

 

That’s how Raphe found himself in a pressed blazer, paired with a tasteful pair of beige slacks, being led down a hallway in Dawson high school. He self-consciously tugged on his ponytail, making sure there were no stray wisps of hair. Michelle had wanted to cornrow it, but had been overruled by the staff handbook dress code guidelines.

The succubus had sulked for hours.

There was a faint buzz in the air that made him break out in goose bumps. A result of the barrier surrounding the school, specifically keyed to keep Michelle out, and reeking with demonic energy so strong it was the only thing he could sense. It would make pinpointing the source all the more difficult.

“We’re so glad to have you Mr. Bright, our last theatre teacher had to leave on incredibly short notice, and we had no one with qualifications for the job lined up,” the vice-principle tittered.

Their last theatre arts teacher had skipped town after his wife had found him in bed with a handsome young man. Three guesses on who it was, and the first two don’t count.

“Mrs. Morrison had to call out today because her youngest had the flu. I’m really sorry to throw you in at the deep end like this,” she said.

“I don’t mind,” Raphe mumbled, tugging at the straps of his messenger bag.

The vice principal giggled and batted her eyelashes, which was the exact moment Raphe noted that she was rather young for a vice principal at a school so highly accredited.

Dawson high school occupied a relatively new building, the floors shined and the paint was rich with color. None of the stains and odd drawings that usually cropped up in schools were evident. But, as they walked further along the green walls became dull, and black smears of shoe polish began to show on the tastefully arranged floor tiles. When they reached a split in the hall Raphe looked down one, seeing unfinished scaffolding and a beaten construction sign lying on its side.

The vice principal chattered about the unfinished wing and how this class was held in here because there simply wasn’t any room in the other parts of the school.

Raphe nodded along dutifully, but nursed the kernel of suspicion forming in his gut.

Dawson high was affluent and in the middle of a wealthy school district, this wing looked like it hadn’t been worked on for more than a month based on the gathered dust. Putting a class in the building that was a direct contrast to the shining, new feel the rest of the campus projected.

They eventually arrived at a set of double doors.

Someone had taped a piece of notebook paper to the door.

_‘Abandon Hope YE(ET) who enter here’_

A skilled caricature was drawn under it, with a beaky nose and offset eyes. It bore an amazing resemblance to the vice-principal.

The woman gave a huff and snatched the paper off the metal, leaving a line of duct tape to join the glue residue and similar dull, silver remnants. She balled it up and clenched it in her fist as she pushed open the door.

It was a amphitheater, rows of seats furnished with burgundy colored velvet crowded the space, leaving only a few feet of space between them and the stage. A freestanding chalkboard cluttered with drawings was leaned against the stage front.

Glowing lines inset into the floor delineated the walkways between the seats, keeping the two adults from tripping as they made there way to the front of the room.

The dull yellow illumination outlined the silhouettes of the students sitting in the front row. Raphe squinted, but the lights around the stage were the only ones lit, leaving the rest of the theatre in shadow.

‘ _Already off to a great start’_

The vaguely creepy atmosphere left Raphe with the distinct feeling that the next few months would be extremely interesting.

The man nearly tripped over his shiny new loafers when the woman in front of him sped up, her slick ponytail swaying with the thump of her heels against the carpeted walkway. With a neat turn, she stood straight-backed in front of the chalkboard and held up the paper in her hand.

“Who did this?” she gritted, seemingly already fed up with the students.

A low hiss of snickers rose from her audience, of which there were seven.

Raphe paused and recounted.

Yep, only seven students, that was unusual.

“Oh, that’s so _mean_ Mrs. Larson, no one _here_ would ever do something so childish,” one girl simpered, twirling a strand from her red-dyed afro.

Mrs. Larson.

Raphe tucked the name away in his memory, mentally scolding himself for forgetting it in the first place.

The woman breathed out heavily,

“I should know better, anyway, meet your new homeroom teacher children, Mr. Seraph Bright.”

Another round of snickers rose from the teenagers.

“Someone’s parents didn’t love him enough,” one boy giggled.

“Or loved their pastor a little too much,” the girl from earlier cackled.

Raphe stepped into the light, startling the class as they twisted in their seats to watch his walk to the vice-principal’s side.

“Nice to meet you class, I hope we get along well.”

He took a moment to really observe the people in front of him.

Three girls and four boys from the look of it, excluding any gender shenanigans that might occur independent of outward appearance.

Raphe had learned the hard way that gender tended to be a sensitive topic to humans. As a creature without any mortal desires or trappings his first few ventures into mortal culture had been eye opening to say the least. He had a tendency to try and not act on assumptions from outward observation.

They all had on the Dawson uniform in various states of non-regulation. It was a visually appealing uniform, in Raphe’s humble opinion, all understated blues and greys. But, as he had been informed in his briefing earlier, this was a rebellious group.

One boy had a truly impressive number of inappropriate pins hanging on his tie, the weight of it pulling the cloth taut. The girl in the second row was covered nearly head to toe, not a peak of skin showing under her hoodie and track pants.

Mrs. Larson’s expression turned smug,

“Mr. Bright will be managing all your core classes and be your only teacher for the rest of the semester,”

“ _What,”_ the boy with the decorated tie nearly shrieked. His classmates broke into discontented murmurs.

Raphe had been surprised himself when he heard the news, but he had to take what he could get and he _was_ technically certified to teach all core curriculum and a few extracurricular classes.

He’d gotten bored a few years ago.

“Not only are you all disrespectful to your teachers, but you also abuse any and all freedoms offered to cause trouble,” the woman continued, repressively.

“The school board determined that it would decrease distraction and help with disciplinary issues if you weren’t allowed to disturb the rest of the school.”

The woman straightened her pantsuit looking ready to start ranting.

Raphe cleared his throat and the vice-principal raised her eyebrows, questioning.

“Thank you Mrs. Larson,” he kept his voice soft as he set his bag on the stage, “I think I can take it from here, I’m sure you have things other than this to do.”

The woman smiled at him, charmed.

With a quick exchange of goodbyes the auditorium doors closed with twin shrieking wheezes, leaving Raphe with seven glowering teenagers.

He smiled, and the dislike among them seemed to grow more oppressive. One of the boys huffed and pulled out his cellphone.

Raphe sighed.

“How about we start with chapter 11 of your math textbooks,” he offered, clearing the chalkboard.

“Today we’ll be discussing the importance of log functions,” he began writing a few formulas on the board. None of the students were taking notes, four of them were on their phones while the rest stared at him blankly. Except the girl in the second row, who had drawn up her hood and slumped sleepily over two seats.

Raphe felt a headache forming.

_This is going to be a long day._


	4. Roomrivals (FUCK)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went back and changed one thing in chapter one because i know shit all about new york, so i just picked the richest neighborhood I could find.

Raphe walked home, feeling defeated.

So far he had learned the vice-principals name, and weeded out one student in his search for Michelle’s Disciple. It had been Tie Boy, whose name turned out to be Declan Blum. He had grabbed the boy’s wrist when he caught him trying to plant a glitter bomb in his bag.

The boy hadn’t even had the decency to look sheepish, simply flashed Raphe an impish grin before running off to join his redheaded friend. Shawna Walker, she of the burning afro, had looked rather disappointed at the failure of her friend’s prank.

Raphe had taken that as a win. He also didn’t bother trying to punish the kid, at that point he’d resigned himself to the utter disregard of the entire class.

The lack of burn he had felt from his contact with the kid had confirmed he wasn’t the latent teenage succubus. It was something Raphe had already guessed since Michelle had said the Disciple was female. Only Michelle had always had a very broad sense of what might indicate gender, and honestly the demon had a tendency to just tack on gender based on their personal preference at the time.

It had led to some pretty hilarious situations, but it also meant that the Disciple could just be a thin, effeminate boy.

Raphe sighed out a cloud of smoke, the familiar buzz of nicotine soothing his annoyance. The streets continued to darken, dyed orange by the encroaching sunset. Small demons and spirits blinked their glowing eyes from the cracks in the concrete; populating the shadows of the alleys.

Raphe pulled his messenger bag higher onto his shoulder and walked faster, ignoring the crack of a gunshot a few blocks away.

He wasn’t obligated to force the kids to pay attention in his class, in fact it made it easier for him to do his task without having to engage with the brats. But, he couldn’t help the part of him that wanted to _teach._

Throughout the years that he had spent on this planet, and it had been _a lot_ of years, he had always been drawn to teaching. Before books and internet access, humans had relied on themselves for knowledge. They had taught each other and their children through the generations, and sometimes it had ended like a bad game of Telephone. Raphe had loved that, had loved the stories and the effort and bestowing knowledge upon eager minds. Even when it became too corrupted to even parse the original content.

So every few centuries he would educate himself on current mortal knowledge and gain a certification to teach.

He hadn’t had to face the vagaries of the modern American school system yet. The man found his experience so far to be wildly discouraging, as a part of him had brightened at the prospect of once again disseminating knowledge. His students’ indifference had killed that hope before it had the chance to spread its wings.

The man sighed as he unlocked his apartment door, kicking the bottom corner to unstick it from the frame. He was nearly blinded when he walked in, the flickering light of the hallway giving way to glittering brilliance.

When his sight cleared he found himself inside a high-rise apartment with a _chandelier_ hanging from the ceiling. No threadbare couch, no grimy kitchen windows, and more importantly _no bed._

His senses must have dulled to near blindness if he hadn’t noticed the portal attached to his door.

A head popped up from the couch facing the wall of windows showing off the New York skyline. Dainty horns curved gently over a head of riotous curls, and a sharp-toothed grin greeted him.

“Hiya angelcake,” Michelle called, hopping over the couch back with a flick of their pointed tail.

The succubus was in a baggy shirt that draped over them and reached mid-thigh; in blocky letters taking up the whole front it said, _‘ It Could Be Gayer’_.

Raphe, finding no obvious gender indicators, settled for the neutral pronoun set. Last time he had picked a binary pronoun for Michelle when they chose such a form he had been thrown off a cliff. It had been impressive because the demon had teleported them from London to the Grand Canyon to do it. Luckily, Raphe still had the power to fly at that point, but as a reference he had used it to inform future interactions with the flirty demon.

Raphe went to the kitchen, picked up a wineglass and poured a finger of whiskey from the bottle on the island into it. He completely ignored the tumbler set up beside the bottle, because he lived for pettiness and if Michelle kept smiling at him with that button nose and those glittering baby blue eyes he might lose his grasp on what little was left of his sanity.

The succubus’ brow wrinkled at his actions.

“That’s just not right.”

Raphe gave the demon a dull look and threw back the contents of the glass with an exaggerated gulp. He poured the whiskey until it reached the rim of the glass after that.

Michelle rolled their eyes and gave an irritated flick of their tail as they sat on one of stools set up by the marble island.

“So? Did you find it?”

“It’s been one day,” Raphe sighed after drinking half of the whiskey in his hand.

Michelle rested their clawed hands under their chin.

“And?”

Raphe gave the demon a narrow-eyed glare. It failed to scorch the creature out of existence. The man lamented his lack of holy power for what seemed like the thousandth time that day.

“There are 400 students in that school, I can’t go around feeling everyone up in the hallways.”

The demon responded with an innocent look,

“You can’t?”

Raphe leaned against the stainless-steel fridge, lighting up a cigarette.

“You know I can’t,” he snapped, waspishly, through a cloud of smoke.

Michelle glowered, lips puckering into a pout.

“You can pick me out just by looking at me, how can you not spot a budding succubus with no control of their powers?”

Raphe scowled, pulling his next cloud back in through his nose before expelling it in a draconic stream.

“The wards the incubus put up are ridiculously overpowered, my teeth start vibrating the moment I get within a block of the campus.”

“I can’t make heads or tails of anything with that thing clouding my senses, you’re lucky I can even pick anyone out at all, even with skin contact.”

Michelle softened slightly at the reminder.

Raphe rolled his shoulders, uncomfortable with the concern.

The demon quickly turned smug.

“So that bastard overcharged the wards ‘cuz he’s scared I’m gonna drop in?”

Raphe rolled his eyes as he poured another glass of whiskey, cigarette dangling between his lips.

“I know you can’t get in to the area because of the wards, but why not wait until she leaves them and snatch your Disciple? We could avoid this whole mess.”

A pedicure set appeared on the table with a muffled pop and the scent of brimstone.

“You think I haven’t tried that?”

The demon huffed and began filing their claws.

“The incubus put some kind of masking spell on my Disciple, I don’t have a fucking clue as to what they look like. The only reason I think it’s a girl is because the kid I made a deal with seemed depressingly heterosexual.”

Michelle had an ongoing grudge against recent trends regarding gender roles, the last few hundred years had been disappointing for the demon.

“It would have helped to know that before, I don’t know, I was thrown into a teaching position for a bunch of demonic brats.”

Michelle’s pointed ears twitched upwards.

“In the colloquial way you fucking menace, I haven’t sensed any demonic energy from the kids.”

The ears drooped.

_Fuck, that’s cute._

Raphe set down his empty wineglass and pushed the half-empty whiskey bottle away.

Demons weren’t cute, they were creatures of terror and woe. They were not small and pouty and painting _their claws pink with little daises stenciled on them._

This shouldn’t be a problem for him, his natural holy energy should repel them from each other. But, as he grew closer to mortality, some worrying thoughts and behaviors had started to creep up on him. Along with a dwindling sense of repulsion when he encountered demonic energy.

He had been friends with Michelle for a long time, which wasn’t unusual. Angels and demons were part of the balance, together. Demons like Michelle were meant to punish evil and seek revenge against the unjust. Angels were scribes and recorders of history, as well as warriors against the Outer Reaches. They couldn’t avoid each other so, more often than not, working relationships were formed.

However, it did not change the fact that the energies of the two factions did not mix. Making it difficult for either creature to enjoy the other’s presence for long.

As he came closer to Falling, his senses dulled and he became helplessly vulnerable to Michelle’s charm.

Raphe had always liked cute things.

Unfortunately, Michelle knew that.

“I have to draw up a lesson plan for next week, and start going through the student body, can you open a portal back to my apartment?”

The succubus looked up, surprised.

“Nope, you’re staying right here.”

They giggled, tail flickering back and forth behind them.

“Until we find my lovely little baby succubus we’re going to be roomies,” They pointed a clawed fingertip, “I have all your stuff in the room down the hall, on the left.”

Raphe gaped, stunned by Michelle’s audacity. A protest rose in his throat, but he was buzzed on whiskey and he bet the bed in the room would be a thousand times more comfortable than the lumpy mattress he usually slept on.

“Okay,” he sighed, shuffling down the hall and ignoring Michelle's teasing, "goodnight!"

He ignored the giant mural of fat, baby cherubs taking up the entirety of one wall when he got to the room. He passed over the wing-themed comforter, and pointedly didn’t notice the variety of rosaries and crosses hanging on the walls.

He lay on the bed, moaning as he sunk into the soft mattress.

Then he turned over to lie on his stomach, so he didn’t have to look at the poster of the pope taped to the ceiling.

_Fucking demon._


	5. Thank You Robin Williams

The next few days were a study in frustration. His class ignored all of his attempts to hammer any kind of education into their skulls. Viola Nguyen, a small chubby girl whose jacket was always wrinkled, took pride in asking the most pedantic questions she could during lecture. Ranging from what color he thought the president’s socks were to the theoretical existence of Bigfoot.

He had foiled no less than eight attempts to prank him by Declan, the little redheaded imp, one of which had nearly left him bald. How the boy had set up the trap system for the falling bucket of Nair remained a mystery.

Raphe had been in the middle of the room, _the ceiling was 40 feet away._

_How had he gotten up there?_

It had quickly become a war a attrition. Raphe refused to report the kids, leery of seeming like he couldn’t handle his class. The children took his stubbornness as an invitation to get increasingly more rowdy, mistaking his quiet endurance for meekness.

He started calling them the Brats as a single entity.

One day, he was sitting in the staff room enjoying his lunch only to be interrupted by a dull roar of screams in the direction of the cafeteria.

Fredrickson, the principal, informed him that they were no longer allowing the Brats into the school lunchroom after that. One of them had set off firecrackers in the school lunch line, ruining the uniforms of all students in the vicinity with buttery mashed potatoes.

_Declan Blum._

The man couldn’t help the thought.

Raphe had whittled 30 students out of his search using that passing period and brushing wrists in the halls. It was more difficult than it should have been since most of the student body found his height and facial tattoo rather intimidating; giving him a wide berth.

With the decree he was exiled to the depilated West Wing, effectively separated from the rest of the student body. He almost wanted to cry when he got home that day. The man’s despair sunk lower when Michelle leapt on Raphe’s back the moment he stepped through the portal; smelling like a freshly smothered campfire and wrapping her short legs around his waist.

Seriously, her form was ridiculously small.

“What the fuck are you, like, fifteen right now?”

The demon giggled, wriggling to wrap her arms over his shoulders.

“I joined the rival school, I was shooting for an immature seventeen, do I feel too young?”, she teased, pressing her breasts into his shoulder blades and arching.

Raphe choked.

“No, we are not doing this, sweet Holy Records stop,” he yelped, throwing her onto the couch.

She flopped limply on the cushions, with no regard to her pleated skirt.

“You’re no fun,” the succubus whined.

She flipped onto her knees crawling towards Raphe.

“C’mon Teach, I’ve been a _naughty_ girl.”

Michelle yelped when Raphe’s messenger bag made contact with her face.

“Could you stop being a menace for _five fucking seconds_?” he panted, retrieving a coaster and holding it up threateningly.

The demon snarled, annoyed. He saw a flash of needle-sharp teeth before her form melted. Next he was looking at her she still had on her uniform, but her form was masculine. Broader shoulders, shapely thighs and definitely older than 18.

The clothes didn’t change so he was going to stick with the feminine pronouns, and hope she didn’t set his hair on fire if he got them wrong.

“What’s with the whole rival school thing? It’s not like it’ll help find your Disciple.”

The demon peeled her lip up into a sneer, “None of your business, is what it is, have you found the kid yet?”

The television turned on with a click as Michelle’s tail unraveled from under her skirt and tapped the remote.

“No luck,” he huffed, sprawling on the couch next to her. He loosened his tie and leaned his head against the back of the seat.

“Now, I can’t even search effectively, the Brats got banned from the cafeteria so now I have to monitor the little punks all day.”

Michelle hummed, and rolled her eyes.

“Why don’t you go all Seraph the Wrath of God on them? I’m sure they’d straighten out real quick if you stopped rolling over for them.”

Raphe grimaced.

“The school system doesn’t really tolerate…hands on teaching methods anymore,” he sighed.

“I don’t really know how much power I have, on one hand no one really tries to socialize with me or even check up on the class, on the other if one of the kids complains to their parents I might end up out on my ass and then we’re back to square one.”

Raphe slumped further down on the couch, kneading at his nose bridge.

He startled when his eyes opened and he was nose-to-nose with Michelle. Her eyes glittered with mischief.

“If you can’t punish them, go all _Breakfast Club_ on them,” she suggested, tone gleeful.

Raphe groaned.

“Real life isn’t like the movies, also I’m pretty sure that they’re bonded well enough together to torture me.”

Michelle blinked, then her brow furrowed.

“Maybe I meant _Dead Poets Society,”_ she muttered, distracted.

Raphe rolled his eyes and was about to say something snippy before he paused. Try and inspire them with no regard for rules and regulation? It wasn’t like he had anything to lose at that point, he thought, warming up to the idea. A smile turned up the corners of his lips.

“ _You’re a genius,”_ he praised the demon, picking her up and settling her in his lap, much to her pleasure.

He kissed her on the cheek and squeezed her into an enthusiastic hug. Before rolling her off of him and running to his room, already thinking of his lesson plan.

Michelle was left half off the couch, blinking in confusion and feeling oddly bereft.

 


	6. Sin City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raphe gets a clue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sup, Im back thanks to those who waited for so long im ready for this cuz man do I love my babies.

The next morning he arrived to class an hour early. For all of their troublesome behavior, the Brats were rarely tardy. Raphe set up his desk precisely and reread is plan multiple times. He had never been prone to anxious behavior, but then again most of his life he had been a nearly immortal being with powers beyond the comprehension of most creatures. So he felt a little nervousness was allowed, considering his weakened state.

They filed in in clumps: Declan and Shawna, Viola and Tiffany, then Joshua, Tanner, and Guo

They ignored him as they found their seats, chattering about the normal things; school gossip and pop culture.

Raphe waited patiently for the kids to find their seats, leaning against his desk in a relaxed slouch.

When the clock hit seven on the dot he cleared his throat.

The children continued to yammer.

In a supremely casual move he took the edge of his desk and flipped it over with a thunderous crash. A few of the kids screamed.

“Do I have your attention now?”

“What the fuck!” Shawna screeched, breathing hard.

Raphe ignored her.

“It has come to my attention that you don’t really like me or trust me, from my impression the feeling’s mutual.”

Raphe stepped forward, closer to the students.

“I came here to teach you, not watch as you play on your phone and wile away your future.”

This statement was met with a few snorts.

Raphe bulled on.

“I took the liberty of checking your grades for this semester, in all your subjects, and all I see is below average scores.”

“It doesn’t seem that kids from a school as accredited as this would purposefully _sabotage_ themselves by doing substandard work.”

“Do you—,”

“ _Sabotage ourselves?”_ Tanner interrupted, snarling, “You think we’re _sabotaging ourselve_ s?”

“Your really are _stupid_ aren’t you? Haven’t you noticed?”

He swung his arms around in an arc.

“We’re the _rejects,_ the poor kids, the _trans kids,_ ” he pointed to himself, “We’re everything this academy doesn’t want so they stick us in a room far away from all the _good_ children and give us some former gang member for a teacher!”

His expression crumpled into something miserable.

“ _They want us to fail_ and we are barely treading water by passing our classes with _no help_ and no support.”

Raphe rocked back onto his heels.

The niggling suspicion that had bloomed in his gut on the first day finally gained traction.

It had started when he had learned that the kid’s were all scholarship students, the only ones that the school had accepted in the past year, other than Tiffany. She had been a normal rich girl who’d fallen on bad times so hard the school had decided to shunt her to the delinquent class.

Now it was solid and Raphe was _pissed._

“And you’re going to let that stop you?” he rebuked, voice even.

“You’re going to let the people that shunt you to the side, because of who you are,  _one up you?”_

Raphe felt his voice rising, the echo of wings brushing his shoulders.

“I don’t care whether the school wants you to succeed or not, _I am here_ _to teach you_.”

He gestured to his blackboard after a muttered, “and do my job.”

“All I have tried to do since I got here is teach you all and fulfill my purpose, but you have consistently _ignored me._ How is that not self sabotage?”

There was an uncomfortable shifting amongst the group. Viola peered at her lap and Joshua fiddled with his phone case.

Raphe folded his arms over his chest.

“Will you let me help you? Do you want to beat the people trying to wash you out of their school record? Then let me teach you what you need to know, and you can have the satisfaction of success against all of their petty efforts.”

He could feel the shift of mood. Shawna’s lips had peeled back into a bloodthirsty smile and Guo had sat up in his seat, eyes glittering. Raphe felt a smirk curl on his mouth.

“I need an answer,” he said, voice deep as church bells.

There was a smattering of yes’s, and Raphe let it be.

There would be plenty of time to build teamwork later.

 

When they got down to it, the whole class was bursting with potential. They were all scholarship students after all. Raphe put his experience and small class to good use by encouraging group study and helping the kids personally. As such he had eliminated Joshua and Viola from his list.

The girl was caught from brushing her fingers when he wrote an equation on her worksheet, and the boy when he patted him on the back for a successful answer to a chemistry equation.

His own class being worked on, he had to investigate the possible succubus by more mortal means. He couldn’t join the rest of the school, having to monitor his students the entire school day. Raphe was beginning to suspect that they had done it on purpose; because most of the teachers looked at him with barely concealed disdain on the rare occasion he was let in to the teacher’s lounge.

He broke in to the school after hours.

The principal’s office had an easy-to-pick lock, and the camera’s were easily shut down by a hexstone. Got to love the local witches propensity for petty thievery.

In the middle of him going through the incident reports for the last few months, a lion’s share of which were attributed to Declan, his phone rang.

He nearly jumped out of his skin.

He plucked his flashlight out from between his lips and accepted the video call from ‘Pain in my Ass’.

He set it on the desk and leaned back in the chair to continue looking at the files.

“Hello?” Michelle drawled, once again in their school uniform and looking like a demonic cherub.

“I’m here,” Raphe answered lowly, turning a page.

“Ooh, I like the mission impossible look, those leather gloves make you seem like you’re ready to spank someone and make them call you sir,” they cooed filthily, twining a light curl around their finger.

Raphe glared at the phone camera and raised an eyebrow.

“Any closer to finding my Disciple?” they asked, stripping out of their clothes and moving away from the camera, revealing their room.

Raphe looked away from the bared skin and focused on his report.

“I’d be going faster if you weren’t calling me every hour looking for updates.”

Michelle pouted, holding a cocktail dress in front of themself in the mirror.

“But I’m _booored_ Raphy,” they complained, “Is this dress too slutty for a charity event, do you think?”

Raphe looked up from a detailed account of Shawna punching out Connor Hammond for calling Declan a ‘sleepy-eyed rat’. Obviously Connor was just joking around, the teacher reported, Shawna overreacted.

Michelle twirled for the camera, large breasts barely contained by the strappy bust of a clingy black dress.

“There is no dress that looks too slutty on you,” Raphe said, honestly, “you look gorgeous.”

Michelle looked at the camera with glittering eyes.

“This is why you’re my favorite.”

Raphe hummed.

“Are we done? I’m working here and possibly committing a felony.”

“Carry on,” the demon said, waving an imperious hand and cutting off the call.

Raphe sighed and moved to put away the folders, hitting a dead end.

‘Tiffany Sandbuck’ said one of the files in the back of the drawer.

Raphe frowned as he tugged it out. It was a student personal file; it definitely didn’t belong in the incident report drawer.

He sat at the desk and opened it.

Tiffany smiled, gap-toothed and with her face proudly displayed. The picture was such a contrast to the turtled up young woman that was a part of his class that Raphe had to blink.

A newspaper clipping was attached to the file.

_Young Student found in Coma._

                       _…His girlfriend, Tiffany (16), went to wake him up after showing up for a date,” the grief stricken mother cried, “we have no idea how this happened.”_

_The young man’s girlfriend refused to comment…_

Raphe’s brow furrowed.

Michelle had said that the Disciple had sucked the soul out of the demon’s contractor. Tiffany had been part of the Pure Love Junior Christian Society, no extra points for originality, and all of the members swore a vow of chastity.

According to her file, at least.

It was possible her boyfriend, not nearly as pious, had gotten a little impatient, and contracted a demon to get what he wanted. Only his girlfriend had been a little too receptive to the energy and turned into a demon herself.

Raphe frowned and tucked the file back where he found it. It didn’t make sense; the paper said that Tiffany had been the one that discovered Christopher in his coma. The parents had witnessed her enter and then leave to immediately tell them what she found, she hadn’t been in the room for more than five minutes. Even excited teenagers took longer than that, especially for it to involve sucking out someone’s soul. Considering her impeccable records and peer review before she ended up in his class, she had been seriously devout.

At least to her idea of the faith.

Raphe lit a cigarette once he got out onto the streets casually jumping the fence to get out of the schoolyard; he tapped his tongue spike to the roof of his mouth.

The only recourse would be to check. Tiffany was his only lead, but it would take some interesting acrobatics to touch even a sliver of skin. The girl was covered head to toe most of the time.

Raphe sighed as he flopped face first on his bed, idly dialing the pizza delivery service.

That could wait until after the weekend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tiffy babe you got a storm coming.


	7. New Age Chic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so i'm really beginning to pick up my plot, getting into the meat of this. I love my little class of misfits, but writing from Raphe's Pov means that I need to set up the plot in regards to him. even though I have a 100 page epic in my head about my Brats.

 

“Did you buy an all inclusive spa day with my credit card?” Michelle asked groggily, scrolling through his phone and spooning some cereal into his mouth.

“Yes.”

The demon looked up from under his newly blue fringe.

“And a 1,500 dollar bottle of scotch?”

Raphe shot back a finger of said alcohol.

“Yep.”

Michelle sighed.

“It’s 10 in the morning, darling.”

Raphe looked the demon dead in the eye as he marked Shawna’s mock chemistry exam.

“Your point being?”

Michelle backed down, rolling his eyes.

“Never try to tear an angel from their hedonism,” he muttered to himself, rising to wash his bowl and get dressed.

Raphe ignored him.

 

On Monday Raphe was fresh as a daisy, revitalized by his drunken weekend and spa trip.

He arrived an hour early, as always, only to be surprised by Tanner waiting in front of his desk.

The boy was looking down at his shoes, scuffing them on the ground.

“Can I help you Mister Choi?”

The boy looked up, startled.

“Um, yeah, hi Mister Bright,” he stuttered, face becoming red as he moved in a nervous back and forth step.

Raphe gestured for the poor kid to take a seat, moving to sit beside him.

“Take your time,” he said, smile tugging on his lips.

The boy tugged out his phone, scratching at the case and eyes jumping around the room.

Raphe waited.

“It’s parent-teacher night next week!” he blurted.

The man raised an eyebrow, patient.

Tanner breathed out shakily, hands clenched around his phone.

“It’s parent teacher night,” he said more calmly, “and I haven’t come out to my parents yet.”

He peeked up at Raphe from under his lashes.

“You don’t want me to give you away?”

The boy nodded frantically.

“They didn’t come last semester, but since this semester I’ve gotten so many detentions and stuff they want to talk to my teacher about my grades and behavior,” he mumbled

Tanner gestured to the theater.

“Before all this I used to wear a skirt and let people call me Tanya, but once they started, well, you know, I just threw all caution to the wind.”

Raphe frowned.

_This could be tricky._

“They only plan to speak to me, correct?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed

Raphe nodded decisively.

“Good, you said they call you Tanya?”

“Short for Tatiana,” he mumbled, “if you called me Tanya they’d probably burst a blood vessel.”

He looked sick just mentioning the name, eyes studiously avoiding Raphe’s.

The man laid a hand on the kid’s tense shoulder.

“Tanner,” he said gently, “I am not suddenly going to start calling you Tatiana because of this,” his lips quirked up, “hell, you came out to me a months ago in a rather moving speech about being in a class of rejects.”

Tanner flushed at the reminder, but leaned into the hand on his shoulder. Raphe pulled him into a half-hug.

He absently noted the lack of burn from demonic energy.

“If you don’t want to come out to your parents, that’s fine, it doesn’t make you any less of a man. But I will never betray your trust in me by telling anyone anything about yourself you don’t want them to be told.”

The boys face broke into a smile as bright as the dawn.

“Thanks Mister Bright,” he whispered, eyes wet.

The doors to the auditorium slammed open.

“Ooooooh, Tanner’s hot for the teacher!” Joshua cackled teasingly, swinging his backpack into a seat as Tanner jerked away from Raphe.

“Shut the fuck up JJ!”

Raphe sighed as the two began to squabble, Tanner pushing Joshua into one of the seats and locking hands as they pushed at each other like two young bulls.

Not long after, the rest of the class trickled in and Raphe tried to find a way to unobtrusively brush up against some bare skin of Tiffany’s.

Unsurprisingly, he failed.

Parent-teacher night arrived with little fanfare. The only thing that kept Raphe from downing half a bottle of vodka and coasting through the night was the fact that he had to set an example for the students.

Not that he believed in good behavior for good behavior’s sake, but because teenage humans had a tendency to over-indulge and take adult role models too seriously.

He let Michelle dress him in a fitted suit, fending off wandering hands with increasing reluctance before fleeing from the demon with his metaphorical tail between his legs.

With his piercing’s removed and his hair teased out and slicked back into a ponytail, he cut a rather impressive figure if he said so himself.

The night would be a tedious one. Not only would he have to spend it completely sober, he would also have to field inquiries about his students and their grades.

Unfortunately, he could be nothing but honest in his answers, bound to his virtues as he was. As long as none of the parents asked him specific questions, he could change subject or simply talk about his beliefs and expectations of their children.

The other conferences went smoothly, until Tanner’s parent showed up. The dissonance he got from seeing Tanner in make up and a dress nearly threw him off more than the disgusted scowl on the father’s face.

The mother was nowhere in sight.

“You’re the teacher,” he grunted, accent faint.

Raphe smiled politely.

“Yes, it’s a pleasure to meet you Mister Choi.”

He held out a hand. The man ignored it and took a seat in front of his desk.

“They let all the teachers run around with shit tattooed on their faces these days?”

Raphe maintained his faint smile while Tanner ducked his head.

“It has to do with my religion,” he answered smoothly, “Unavoidable.”

The man snorted.

“My girl got into this school on her hard work and merit only to be shunted aside and put into a class that is clearly run by someone unqualified.”

Raphe let the man talk.

“But I also hear that you’ve been letting my child dress like some _dyke,_ and can’t be fucked to teach her anything useful,” he snarled.

Raphe felt his brows rise.

“Who told you that?” he asked, because it certainly wasn’t him. Who would go out of their way to tell Jun Choi something so specific?

Choi went red.

“That doesn’t fucking matter, _you_ need to start enacting some discipline for yourself and your fucking class, _you hear me._ The school board don’t listen to shit I say, but I will get your ass fired if this continues.” He threatened emptily.

He leaned over the desk, ignoring Tanner’s quiet, “Daddy, please.”

Raphe remained unruffled.

He straightened the pen on his desk.

“Sir, if you had the power to get me fired, it would have happened by now,” he said.

Choi’s red color deepened.

“As a matter of fact, if you could truly do anything about it you wouldn’t be here talking to me. Dalton is a highly accredited school, with a near guarantee to get into college scholarship and honors programs. You can’t afford to pull your child from class and you certainly can’t change a thing about how Ta—Tatiana is handled.”

Raphe stood up slowly, rising to his full height.

Choi’s eyes were wide as he looked up into Raphe’s grim features.

“Now I suggest you sit down and shut up, so I can tell you how well your kid is doing and how much talent she shows in chemistry.”

Choi sat.

Raphe returned to his seat as Tanner hid a smile behind his hands.

          Tiffany’s parents didn’t show up.

 

 

After student-teacher night Tanner looked at Raphe like he hung the moon and stars. It caused no small amount of teasing from the other students about him being a teacher’s pet.

It also provided the man with a mainline source into his student’s gossip. It hadn’t been his goal, but damn if it wasn’t convenient. It allowed Tanner to chatter at an adult that didn’t dismiss him out of hand and it gave Raphe a treasure trove of information.

Just because they were cut off from the rest of the school didn’t mean that his students didn’t still have friends outside their class.

He learned that Shawna slept around quite a bit and had half the school hanging off her every word. Even with his suspicions about Tiffany he took note of that.

Declan and she had been thick as thieves the moment they met, apparently. The younger boy had skipped a grade straight into the bad graces of most of the student body with his teasing grin and lack of regard for ‘stupid people’.

Tiffany was a mystery to everyone, quiet and listless after her boyfriend’s tragic coma.

Joshua was an aspiring musician and had a band with some other students in the music department. Apparently they played shows at a local café. Tanner said that with a voice thick with admiration, one nod away from fanatic.

Viola was ambitious as hell and had a tendency to browbeat the people around her, making Tiffany her best friend. The girl’s quiet disposition let Viola talk all she wanted. Tanner said with an exaggerated roll of his eyes, some drama between the two teens fuelling his disdain.

Guo’s family had moved to the U.S from Hong Kong a few years ago, apparently they put him under insane amounts of pressure to succeed. The dip in his grades from the sabotage had left him stressed and scrambling.

            Raphe ruffled Guo’s hair on the way out of class the next day, congratulating him on his 96 on his math quiz.

            Not a succubus.

 

Michelle sighed breathily, turning up the volume on her trashy soap opera.

“No,” she screamed softly, gnawing on her claws, “Miguel she’s not worth it.”

Raphe wrote down another question for the history quiz he was making, highlighting a passage in the textbook.

“Oh dear,” he said dryly, “it seems that the protagonist will _once again_ abandon the love of his life for cheap thrills, how titillating.”

The demon shushed him.

Raphe snorted.

“I don’t see how you can watch this stuff, it’s predictable and contrived.”

Michelle turned to look at him with solemn eyes.

“It plumbs the true depths of the human soul.”

Raphe laughed and shook his head. Michelle nudged his shoulder with a delicate foot.

“It’s been months, have you got any leads?”

The man chewed on his pencil.

“Yeah, one, but I haven’t been able to follow through.”

Which was worrying, eight students had been sent home with the flu last week. Only it wasn’t flu season and none of them had any symptoms other than being exhausted to the core. The school nurse was stumped and willing to talk anyone’s ear off about it, even the outcast temp with tattoos on his face.

There was no commonality between them, and according to observation, none of them had interacted with Tiffany. But none of them had dropped into a coma. His own class was twitchy about the whole affair, Declan manic and Viola louder than ever.

They were hiding something.

Michelle slithered across the couch to drape herself across his lap, dark-skinned and twirling a strand of her afro around her finger.

Raphe sucked in a breath when she arched, smoothing her skirt over her thighs. She looked soft and inviting, all smiles and half-lidded eyes.

“Please stop,” he breathed, closing his eyes and looking away.

Michelle pouted, but removed herself at his soft plea.

“I don’t see why your so resistant,” she huffed, something hurt in her voice, “this might be the only time we could ever get biblical—,”a snort, “—and you’re hung up on whatever holiness is holding you back.”

Raphe felt something in his chest swoop. Their friendship was strong and older than most human countries. They had always played, pushing and pulling with easy intimacy even when their very natures had burned against each other. Michelle never acted hurt when she was rebuked.

“Michelle,” he said, “If I—If we—,”

He reached out to put a hand on the succubus’ shoulder, hating the way her ears drooped.

Michelle scoffed bitterly.

“Yeah, whatever, I know your types think we’re dirt under your shoes. Obstacles to your ‘higher purpose’,” she mocked. She shrugged off his hand and stood, form melting and reforming until she was a young man dressed to go clubbing.

He looked back as he opened the door, eyes dark, before he left.

“Don’t have too much fun being a killjoy.”

 

Leaving Raphe speechless.

 

Declan slept through class the next day, barely waking up to finish his lunch before dropping off again. The rest of the class watched Raphe warily for a reaction, but he did nothing, letting the young boy sleep.

The succubus hadn’t returned to the apartment that night.

He waved off the kids when the school day ended and Shawna reached to wake up her friend. The girl scowled, but obeyed when he shooed her away, going to wait just outside the theater doors.

Raphe took a moment to pack up his bag and gather his supplies before walking to the second row of seats.

“Declan,” he said, quietly, nudging the kid’s shoulder.

In an impressive show of overreaction the kid gasped awake with a jerk before flailing and almost falling out of his seat. His book bag spilled down the aisle, kicked by his swinging leg.

“Yes?” he slurred.

Raphe laughed and reached down to gather the books that had scattered across the floor.

“Am I giving you too much work Mister Blum? You’ve been asleep all day.”

Declan stuttered something about being able to handle it, almost falling over himself to gather his mess. The man assured him it was no trouble. Only, one of the books he picked up, spine and binding carefully covered in notebook paper, had a summoning circle inscribed on one of the pages.

He forgot what he was going to ask about Declan’s fatigue.

The kid tried to snatch it away, but Raphe jerked back, standing.

“It’s not on the banned book list!” Declan hurried to explain, “You can’t confiscate it.”

Raphe didn’t answer, flipping the pages and finding a circle for summoning a lower-level hell imp. Only one of the inner rings had a misspelled word, rendering it useless.

“I’m not going to confiscate it Blum,” he said, absently, holding the book above his head and out of the short boy’s reach. The kid grasped at his shirt and stretched onto tiptoes, his hand barely clearing Raphe’s neck.

He turned some more and found numerous circles of varying intensity and power, all of them with small barely noticeable changes that made the circles useless for summoning.

He flipped to the preface.

_Terra Fortier._

He scowled.

“Where did you get this?”

But Declan had retreated to flop sullenly into one of the seats.

Raphe sighed.

Records save him from pouty teenagers.

He handed the book back to the boy.

“You’re not in trouble Declan, it’s just an interesting book,” he said as he adjusted his own bag, watching as his student shoved the volume into his nearly overstuffed backpack.

The boy muttered something like thanks, before speeding off, not bothering to answer his teacher’s quiet farewell.

The man’s easy expression melted into something pensive.

The storefront was tucked into an alley, sunk into the ground under a building and so far out of the way most people couldn’t find the entrance. The concrete around the hole looked dangerous and crumbling: uninviting to the cautious.

Creepers and vines curled lovingly into the gaps of the metal stairs leading to the door, the small flowers peeking out from between the leaves were smeared with the orange and yellow of the sunset.

A pixie peered from one of the gaps in the stairway, wings iridescent and buzzing, little claws clad in aluminum gripping the grate of the steps.

On the door hung a wooden sign.

 _51 st Chapter_, it spelled in curling, artful script.

Raphe turned the rusted knob and pushed.

The store was filled with dull ambient light, lamps with thick glass interspersed around bookshelves in various arrangements and styles. The reflections of crystal and odd ornaments made a puzzling mosaic of the walls and surfaces.

In sight of the entrance was a desk, taken up by an old cash register and manned by a woman scrolling through her phone.

Terra looked up and her face split into a welcoming grin.

“Raphael!” she greeted, name long and drawn out by the bayou in her voice, “I haven’t seen you in a dog’s age.”

Raphe smiled.

“That’s not my name,” he corrected, walking further into the store and letting the door swing closed behind him.

Terra laughed.

“Well, you never tell me the what Raphe stands for, so I have to call you somethin’ more proper.”

She set down her phone, rings glittering in the low light.

“Caitlyn, honey, guess who’s here!” she called.

A voice answered from the back of the store, loud and puzzled.

“What?”

Terra grumbled something about percussive potions and got up, pushing aside the beaded curtains that hid the backroom.

“I said, guess who’s here!” she screamed.

“Who?”

There was the sound of footsteps and a small woman appeared from behind the beads, ears stuffed full of slightly bloody cotton. Her expression lit up when she laid eyes on Raphe.

“Raphy,” she said, “How are you?”

She stepped forward, through the gap in the counter to drag him down with her small hands to kiss his cheeks.

“Are your hexstones working well? Do you want to see our new charm for silent steps?” she asked, half-yelling.

Raphe shook his head.

“I actually came to ask a few questions about one of your books.”

Caitlyn stared at him blankly.

“What?”

Terra snickered.

“You gotta speak louder _cher_ , she busted her eardrums earlier this week.”

“I want to ask about one of your books,” he said again, slightly louder.

“Which one?”

Raphe’s lips pulled down.

“I didn’t see the title, but it was filled with demonic summoning circles, only they all had little flaws in them to make them useless.”

Terra’s lips popped open in surprise.

“ _Daimon Kyklos,”_ she said, “It’s one of the ones on the mortal dabbler bookshelves, y’know for kids lookin’ for thrills.”

Raphe made a face at the terrible Greek.

Terra rolled her eyes.

“Why do you want to know about a book like that?” Caitlyn asked, gaze sharp.

Declan definitely wasn’t a demon and he didn’t have any of the signs of casting demonic magic. But that book had been full of notes in his cramped handwriting, some of them actually correcting the botched circles. The pages had been filled with two more styles of writing other than Declan’s and had been ragged where a few of the sheets had been torn from the book.

If the boy had corrected the circles and given them out for whatever reason, it would answer how a someone like Christopher had been able to get a hold of a circle well made enough to draw in Michelle.

Terra and Caitlyn were incredibly good at what they did.

If there were pages floating around at the school, he needed to find them before someone released a Hellbeast on the student body and accidently killed the Disciple he was trying to find.

He’d deal with Declan himself.

“Someone corrected your circles and is passing them around a high school,” he said plainly, “I need to know if you have a spell connected to the book that will make tracking it easier.”

All the items in _51 st Chapter _were enchanted to be resistant to tracking unless someone used a specific key-spell.

Caitlyn hummed, reaching behind the counter to grab a notebook.

“We’ve only sold one volume in the past 4 months,” she waved at Terra as she came to the page she needed, “It’s keyed into spell 42B.”

The other woman disappeared into the back to find the key-spell and Caitlyn closed the book.

“Whoever got the book must be talented if they managed to find the flaws in the circles,” she said; mouth thin and hard, “In a high school, you say?”

“Yeah.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“It wouldn’t happen to be anywhere near Freesia Heights Church, would it?”

“I don’t know, why?”

Raphe rarely paid attention to religious institutions other than to take advantage of the energy of faith to charge spells and enchantments. They never really appealed to him.

She didn’t answer, turning away to grab the sliver bracelet that Terra brought out.

“This’ll get you what you need. Anything else we can do for you?”

Raphe sighed and let it go. He had done numerous favors for the two witches in the past and it made them generous, but they weren’t friends.

“Yeah, I need a few more things.”


	8. Where's my Exsposition?

Freesia Heights was a church a few miles away from Dalton. It hosted open services on Sunday and was utterly normal.

Raphe left the gathering long before the priest finished his recitation and went to smoke, feeling the echo faith that had rung through the walls like a hymn.

If only he could still sing.

 

He showed up to school two hours early and painstakingly drew a short-range portal onto one of the plywood panels stacked behind the stage. The backroom was full of detritus and things that were too big or awkward to store anywhere else in the building. It was the perfect place to use the PortalParty™ chalk.

He had already stenciled in the runes at parking lot a mile away from the school, right behind the ticket station. Shivering in the winter air with his breath fogging around him.

Caitlyn and Terra were truly godsend. He had nowhere near enough power to manage to do any of the things he was accomplishing using their potions and enchantments.

He gave a satisfied hum when he wrote the last rune. Task finished, the twine ring on his finger that allowed him to hold the chalk fizzled into nothing in a show of white sparks. He clapped his hands to get rid of the rainbow of dust on his palms. The particles left his skin in a diaphanous cloud; wavering and flickering like a miniature aurora.

The portal dust faded into the ether before it could touch the ground.

He checked his watch as he rolled his sleeves down.

Ten minutes until class.

He heard the creaking wheeze of the main doors of the theater echo, and then the low murmur of voices.

He frowned as he made his way out from backstage.

“…what you did!” a boy snarled, hand clenched into Shawna’s collar.

JJ stepped forward and forced the kid away with a growl.

“Back off, man.”

The other boy went red and looked ready to start swinging.

“What’s going on?”

Raphe’s soft question reverberated and the students stepped away from each other hastily.

“Nothing,” Shawna drawled with a glare, straightening her uniform tie, “just another guy that got too attached and can’t take no for an answer.”

JJ snickered and the boy’s lips twisted.

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

Then he spun on his heel and exited the building, nearly running over Declan and Viola on his way out. Viola cursed and nearly dropped the spell book they were hunching over as they walked.

It wasn’t the _Daimon Kyklos_ and Raphe felt a headache begin to form. Now the kids were obviously searching outside sources and knowing how terrifyingly intelligent and studious Declan and Viola were, it would mean nothing but trouble.

“Was that Ray?” Declan muttered to himself, looking at Viola, who shrugged her shoulders aggressively and glared at the other boy’s retreating back.

“Who was that?” Raphe sighed, rubbing at the wrinkles forming on his forehead.

Shawna looked away, uncomfortable as JJ’s eyes lit up with something vindictive.

“That was James Rayleigh,” he said, “he’s a real creep that keeps bothering Shawna just because she won’t sleep with him.”

He hissed when Shawna slammed an elbow into his side.

“Ray’s not a problem,” she huffed, eyes narrow and cheeks red with embarrassment, “it’s almost time for class, though. Isn’t that right Mister Bright?”

She looked at Raphe expectantly as the rest of the children straggled in, pausing at the plateau that had formed in the aisle.

“Indeed,” he said, gaze jumping around the students, all of them looking to be in various states of bedraggled. There was a bruise crawling up Guo’s neck, and a black terror hiding in Tanner’s eyes.

He set a hand on Shawna’s shoulder, voice soft.

“If any of you have trouble, you can always come to me, got it?”

Shawna shrugged him off.

“Sure, Teach, can we start class now?”

With that she pushed past him, breaking the spell as the teenager’s found their seats and Raphe lingered, clenching his hand into a fist.

It burned like hellfire.

 

The Brats were quiet the whole lesson, barely asking any questions and whispering amongst each other. Tiffany in particular looked extremely miserable.

Raphe paid the behavior very little mind.

It was Shawna.

She was the Disciple he was looking for, half of the job he was here to complete. Only Michelle was nowhere to be found and the succubus was liable to be off blowing of steam for _weeks._ The only reassurance Raphe had that they would return was the fact that they hadn’t cancelled any of their credit cards. The demon refused to answer his phone calls or texts, only leaving him with the message that they needed to clear their head.

Which was fine. Raphe was all for self-care and living in the moment. But there was an ongoing problem. He needed to be able to contact Michelle, now more than ever since he found the demon’s Disciple. Only, no matter what he tried to do his calls wouldn’t go through and neither would his texts.

He was stranded.

Raphe sighed and laid his head on the rickety desk he had set up in front of the chalkboard. It had never really recovered from being flipped over and wobbled under any kind of weight.

The kid’s had left a few hours ago, but he didn’t feel like going back to the spacious, empty penthouse that he had called his home for the past few months. Instead he curled up under his desk and let himself feel the emptiness where his grace should be, the creeping shadow of mortality yawning over him as he decided that he would begin his search for the incubus tomorrow. When everything seemed a little less overwhelming and the anxious eagerness of hope was less pressing. When the phantom of hymn left the back of his throat.

He fell asleep with a song echoing in his ribcage: formless and melancholy.

 

 

“—you sure?”

JJ, sounding concerned.

“Yeah—we _have_ to do this, Tiff can’t last much longer.”

Declan, mocking voice subdued. Raphe stirred, eyes opening in the near darkness.

“But what about Ray?”

Tanner?

“What about him? He’s a bigoted ass, I can’t help this curse but I haven’t hurt anyone.”

Definitely Shawna, there was a shuffling sound and the tap-drag of chalk on a smooth surface.

“Besides this wasn’t even my fault, if _you_ hadn’t been nerding about the occult and passing around demonic shit we wouldn’t even _be_ in this situation.”

“ _Hey!”_

“Shut the fuck up Declan, you know I’m right.”

“He was crazy, he—he just took us down like nothing, he could have _killed_ Guo!”

Tanner again, voice trembling with anxiety.

Raphe focused more on the sounds he was hearing, something heavy lodging itself in his throat as the suspicious exchange continued.

“We are lucky those people came to check the haunted house, we would have been paste otherwise.”

Guo: words precise and his voice raspy.

“All that matters is that we filled the crystal with the latent energy, it’ll keep everything contained. Now _shut up,_ I have to concentrate!”

Viola, snappish as the sounds of chalk drawing intensified.

Raphe scrambled out from under his desk, makeshift shirt-blanket falling from his shoulders as he leapt onto the stage, sending the standing chalkboard rolling into a tailspin that ended in an inevitable collapse.

“ _What are you doing?”_ he boomed, forgetting for the moment his very human vocal chords and efforts to keep is voice below intimidating levels. He winced as he felt a twinge in his throat, but stood tall, glaring at the teenagers gathered around a summoning circle filled with ritual ingredients.

They stared back, gobsmacked.

“Wow, tattoos,” Guo said, breaking the shocked silence.

Tiffany stood and Raphe had a moment of shock, because the girl was wearing nothing but a t-shirt and jeans. It was almost as if she was naked, her usual cover-up completely absent.

“You need to go,” she commanded, something threading into her voice and blasting over him in a cold wave.

Demonic energy.

But Shawna was the Disciple, could he have been mistaken?

Undirected and unpolished as the push was, it barely ruffled Raphe. The scripture on his bicep glowed faintly, his nature rejecting the demonic suggestion.

“I am going nowhere,” he enunciated, softening his voice.

He stepped forward and JJ moved out of the way instinctively, intimidated by the man’s height.

Declan made a sharp gasping noise as Raphe pulled off his tank top and mopped through the chalk circle.

“No!” Viola squeaked, trying to grab his arms.

He kept wiping until the precise drawing became unrecognizable, letting out a satisfied breath. Viola’s hands went limp from where they had been futilely trying to stop his movements.

“Fuck it!” Shawna snarled, rushing forward and wrapping her arms around his neck in a parody of a hug.

“Wait!” JJ cried, scared.

She didn’t wait.

“Hey, Teach,” she drawled, demonic fire flaring hot and grating against his defenses, “how ‘bout you stop what your doing and come with me.”

Raphe had the presence of mind to snarl, fighting the sudden haze and throwing her to the side. He put a bit too much strength behind it, knocking her into Declan and pushing the boy over.

“None of that,” he hissed, throwing his shirt at the face of Guo, who yelped and stopped trying to sneak up behind him.

Declan lunged forward snarling, but Raphe caught him easily and sent him stumbling into Tanner’s arms.

“You don’t know what you’re doing!”

Raphe frowned thunderously at the red-faced boy.

“I know exactly what this is and I’m not letting _any_ of you go through with it.”

He crossed his arms and stared down at the Brats.

“Now I need some explanations about why any of you think a beacon circle would be a good idea without a focal point before I assign detention to _every one of you_ until the semester ends.”

Viola gaped.

“ _You know?”_

There was a general murmur of disbelief around him. Tiffany was hunching over and coughing to clear her throat and Shawna was finally rising from where she had flopped after Declan had pushed her aside. Not an unusual reaction for newborn demons exposed to even an afterimage of true holy resistance.

“I knew it!” Shawna snarled, “You’re one of those flower church freaks that want to kill me and Tiff just for existing.”

Raphe blinked.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, I’m here to find you and make sure you don’t get killed.”

He crossed his arms, narrowing his eyes at the huddle the children had fallen into.

“More importantly, it seems like I’ve missed out on some exciting stuff, because last time I checked there was only supposed to be one of you.”

He met Tiffany’s gaze for a second before she looked away, biting her lip nervously.

Tanner shuffled forward, eyes downcast and scratching at his phone case.

“It’s really complicated Mister Bright,” he said.

Raphe continued to look stern.

“I have time Mister Choi, so explain it to me.”

The Brats fell into each other to have a whispered conference, before Viola was pushed forward as spokesperson.

She shifted, anxious, before taking a seat on the ground, gesturing for everyone to follow. Raphe folded his legs and focused on her attentively.

She scowled and seemed to be searching for the right words.

“It started a few weeks before you got hired…”


	9. Memory Lane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm actually thinking about going through and editing some of the chapters(read; all). But in the meantime here's some content my dudes.

_In the beginning it was just Declan and his friends, with Shawna tagging along._

 

Shawna laughed, squirming, as Declan poked at her side. Christopher groaned, wincing under her sudden weight.

“Jesus, get off, I’m trying to study.”

Declan let up with a snort, smirking at Chris.

“Still having trouble with Calculus?” he mocked, reaching for the bag of potato chips on the coffee table.

Chris ran a flustered hand through his hair, ignoring the other boy’s condescending tone.

“Yeah, I just can’t do this anti-derivative stuff.”

Shawna leaned into the couch, sinking into the cushions with a relaxed sigh. She and Declan had finished their work an hour ago, and Chris refused to let them help him.

“You wouldn’t be struggling so much if you hadn’t decided to take a fourth year course,” she mumbled through a mouthful of potato nirvana. Declan yelped when she snatched the rest of the bag from him and upended the crumbs into her mouth.

Chris scowled.

“You and Declan are taking it.”

Declan scoffed.

“Yeah, but we’re _scholarship_ , you’re just an average Joe Shmo riding in on Daddy’s money bags.”

He didn’t mention how they were somehow getting _lower_ grades, despite understanding the subject better.

Shawna socked the red-haired boy in the arm.

“Ow—what the fuck?”

Shawna rolled her eyes.

“Don’t be an ass.”

Chris didn’t even acknowledge the byplay, too focused on his work. He marked an answer down and made a despairing sound when the answer key showed a completely different result.

Declan rolled his eyes and went back to scrolling through Reddit pages on his phone, letting out the occasional amused giggle. Shawna yawned sleepily and threw her legs over the younger boy’s lap, sighing in satisfaction when he absently began to rub her calves. Declan could be caustic and condescending at the best of times, but under his prickly exterior he was soft as a marshmallow.

Chris watched from under his eyelashes, covetous.

Shawna noticed and then decided to ignore the attention, flipping a page in her book, Music Theory: Jazz Edition. She didn’t let her discomfort show, even as a small part of her wanted to preen. Shawna wasn’t a shy girl by any means and she loved attention and praise to the point that a lot of people would call it a flaw in her character.

In her humble opinion, people who thought that could go fuck themselves.

But, with Chris, it made something in her gut churn uncomfortably. His gaze always felt heavy, like the fact that his eyes appraised her added weight to her every action. It didn’t help that the boy had a girlfriend and he wasn’t shy about complaining that she wouldn’t put out.

It wasn’t any of Shawna’s business about Chris’s relationship with Tammy—Tabby—or whatever her name was, but Shawna wasn’t a homewrecker and she never planned to be.

So she ignored any and all indicators of Chris’s attraction. Ignored his jealous scowls when he saw a hickey on her neck, ignored the desirous looks when they were alone.

So far it was working gloriously.

If it had only been her, she would have dropped him as a friend the moment she got too uneasy. But he and Declan had bonded over weird occult garbage and she valued Declan too much as a friend to give up time with him. Shawna didn’t put much faith in magic or anything like that, but she was of the opinion that people should be better safe than sorry. Which included not messing around with demonology for funnies.

Alas, Declan was elbow deep in the nonsense and _somehow_ ended up finding the only other two nerds at the school that shared his interest. Ray was running late doing errands for his older brother and Chris had insisted on finishing their homework before going through Declan’s demon circle foolishness.

It helped that Chris’ parents were on a weekend business trip, leaving the bunch of friend’s with freedom over the entire townhouse. Shawna was personally enjoying the extremely soft throw blanket and couch pillows, feet thrown up on Declan’s lap without the worry of Chris’ parents walking in and seeing her act boorishly. She basked contenetly in the sunlight pouring in from the floor length windows and popped a handful of M&M’s into her mouth.

The all access pass to eat snacks on the couch was a bonus. Her own parents would never let anyone so much as _chew_ on any of the furniture outside the kitchen.

A tinkling chime sounded through the house and Declan leapt up from the couch with an explosive groan. Throwing Shawna’s legs off his lap.

“Finally!”

Chris slumped to the floor with a whine.

“That’s it I’m done for the day,” he sighed.

Shawna laughed at their childish antics.

The patter of Declan’s feet on the floorboards made it to the door quickly and returned just as hastily, followed by a calmer, more even set of steps.

“’Sup,” Ray greeted, slinging his jacket off his shoulders in a pile and falling on top of Shawna with a grunt.

She yowled like a startled cat, and smacked him with her book.

“Why. Are. You. So. _Heavy.”_ she wheezed in time with her hits.

People didn’t expect Ray to weigh as much as he did; he was lean and always dressed in a uniform one size too big. But underneath all the layers he had the ripped physique of a consummate athlete. Shawna would have zeroed in on him like a hawk on a field mouse if she hadn’t gotten to know him and his annoying personality first.

Character defects aside, he was handsome. With large, dark eyes and full lips that pulled into a charming smile. Shawna and he’d had an understanding from almost the moment they met; so being playful and flirty came naturally to the both of them.

“Alright, lovebirds,” Chris snapped, “break it up.”

Ray rolled his head to meet Shawna’s eyes, exasperation clear. Chris’ jealous crush was obvious to everyone except for Declan, the poor soul. Shawna smirked and put the olive-skinned boy in a headlock. He choked, flailing, but not bucking hard enough to throw her off.

“ _Oh,_ but what would I do without my _Romeo_ ,” she sighed breathily, “he fill my cupeth—”

“Not in the play,” Declan corrected distractedly, flipping through his demon reference binder.

Cut off so abruptly, Shawna let go, rolling her eyes and leaving Ray to flop out of her grip dramatically.

“Fine, whatever,” she huffed, “go back to worshipping Satan or whoever.”

She picked up her book and continued to read, ignoring the grouchy protests of the boys. Declan moved off the couch to sit at the low table, cross-legged with his friends. Despite his generally messy look he was an organized guy. From his bag appeared three more reference binders, color-coded and tabbed for convenience, along with the demon circle book.

Shawna leaned against the arm of the couch and let their chatter wash over her as the shadows cast by the sun stretched and deepened.

She blinked when she hit the last page of her book, looking uselessly for the next sheet of practical questions.

“I think she’ll like it,” Ray was saying, “see the flowers make it look really cool, and the whole ‘ _entity of sexual satisfaction’_ will totally turn her key.”

“But carnations mean fantasy and dreams, even with the roses I don’t think it’s supposed to summon anything _useful_ on that front,” Declan said, flipping the pages of his binder absently.

“Chris’ would be more suited, I think.”

Chris tucked a piece of paper closer to his chest.

“Uh-uh, no way, this one’s mine, I called dibs.”

Ray rolled his eyes, clicking his tongue and slinging an arm over Declan’s shoulder.

“My friend, you see, I don’t need this circle to _do_ anything,” he inspected the paper in the light of the dying sun, “all I need it to do is look pretty and interesting enough to get Kalista Fotos in my bed.”

Declan scoffed and wrinkled his nose, disgusted by the thought.

Shawna felt a grin steal across her face.

“Kal? From St. Mary’s? With the—” she gestured to her legs, flexing them.

Ray smirked back, nodding.

“We’ve been dancing around a bit, but she’s playing coy, I think I can score with a little push,” he chuckled.

Shawna cackled and bumped fists with him.

“Hell yeah man.”

Chris watched with his lips pursed.

“Got a lot of chill, Shawnie, considering you and Ray are all over eachother.”

“Don’t call me Shawnie,” she snapped, not really thinking, then, “Wait—do you thing me and Ray are _dating?_ ”

Ray broke in to peals of laughter, curling up on his side in hilarity. Shawna was tempted to join him.

“Dude, we’re just friends.”

Chris flushed, embarrassed.

“But you guys are always all over each other and,” he looked at the carpet, “stuff.”

Ray let out a hiccupping breath and sat up, wiping a tear from his eye.

“Nah, man. We’re just two players acknowledging each other on the field, if we _did_ get together, we wouldn’t be _dating,”_ he winked, “if you catch my meaning.”

Shawna snorted and flicked the back of his neck.

“Ow!”

“That won’t be happening anytime soon. I can’t imagine having to deal with you’re chatterbox ass long enough to finish a homework assignment, let alone long enough to have sex.”

Ray waved his hand in acknowledgement, at peace with the assessment.

Chris looked at her with wide eyes.

“Oh,” he said.

“ _Its for summoning an incubus,”_ Declan cried, hands thrown up victoriously.

“Both of the circles you guys picked are different summonings for an incubus.”

He blinked at them and the awkward atmosphere.

“What?”

_That was just the start of all our problems._


End file.
